Never leave the install CD in the drive!

[Guest Deane]

A friend (I swear, this is NOT about me...) has Windows Small Business

Server 2003. He has two drives, and mirrors them through Windows.

 

He calls me --

 

"Yeah, the power went out, and when the server came up, there was this

black screen that said I had to push a key, then these other blue

screens that had me push all these other others, and now it tells me

that the install will take 39 more minutes..."

 

To my horror, I realize that he (1) left the Windows install CD in the

drive, (2) when the power came on he confirmed that he wanted to boot

from the CD, then he (3) clicked a sequence of keys to start Windows

reinstalling. I haven't gone over there yet, so I don't know if he

formatted the drive in the process. The current Windows install

sequence is setting at the "Select your language" screen. I told him

to leave it there.

 

Question --

 

Since the drives were mirrored, my theory is that anything that was

done from the CD boot was done to ONE of the drives, since you set up

mirroring under Windows itself and Windows has never actually booted

yet.

 

My belief is that one of those drives is sitting idle with a pristine

version of the image before the power went out -- it would not have

had any data changed until he set up mirroring in Windows and the

discs started re-syncing.

 

I hope to go over there later today, and disconnect one of the drives

and see if it boots on one drive. If not, I'll disconnect the other

one and see if it boots from there.

 

What are the odds that this story will end well?

[Guest Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Re: Never leave the install CD in the drive!

 

See below.

 

"Deane" <deane.barker@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:c8b4232d-c7bc-400c-961b-9afaae4b43a0@s13g2000prd.googlegroups.com...

>A friend (I swear, this is NOT about me...) has Windows Small Business

> Server 2003. He has two drives, and mirrors them through Windows.

>

> He calls me --

>

> "Yeah, the power went out, and when the server came up, there was this

> black screen that said I had to push a key, then these other blue

> screens that had me push all these other others, and now it tells me

> that the install will take 39 more minutes..."

>

> To my horror, I realize that he (1) left the Windows install CD in the

> drive, (2) when the power came on he confirmed that he wanted to boot

> from the CD, then he (3) clicked a sequence of keys to start Windows

> reinstalling. I haven't gone over there yet, so I don't know if he

> formatted the drive in the process. The current Windows install

> sequence is setting at the "Select your language" screen. I told him

> to leave it there.

 

*** I would modify the advice you gave in the Subject line to

*** "Read what it says on the screen before pushing buttons",

*** especially if you're a server administrator . . .

*** Second rule: "When confronted with an unfamiliar situation,

*** think before you act, then think again."

> Question --

>

> Since the drives were mirrored, my theory is that anything that was

> done from the CD boot was done to ONE of the drives, since you set up

> mirroring under Windows itself and Windows has never actually booted

> yet.

 

*** If it's a Windows mirror then your guess is probably correct.

> My belief is that one of those drives is sitting idle with a pristine

> version of the image before the power went out -- it would not have

> had any data changed until he set up mirroring in Windows and the

> discs started re-syncing.

>

> I hope to go over there later today, and disconnect one of the drives

> and see if it boots on one drive. If not, I'll disconnect the other

> one and see if it boots from there.

>

> What are the odds that this story will end well?

 

*** Pretty good. Remember that the mirror disk may not boot

*** by itself - see here:

*** http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;113977

*** http://support.microsoft.com/kb/167045/EN-US/

 

*** If this does not work then your friend would have to restore

*** the server from his most recent backup. How recent is it?

[Guest NoConsequence]

Re: Never leave the install CD in the drive!

 

On Wed, 16 Jan 2008 12:14:28 -0800 (PST), Deane

<deane.barker@gmail.com> wrote:

>Question --

>

>Since the drives were mirrored, my theory is that anything that was

>done from the CD boot was done to ONE of the drives, since you set up

>mirroring under Windows itself and Windows has never actually booted

>yet.

 

This all depends on the RAID setup. If it's hardware RAID (and many

servers ARE), then Windows has nothing to do with the Mirror.